Sound More Natural in English like a Native Speaker

Have you ever listened to a non-English speaker trying to communicate and it sounds like a computer speaking? This is fairly common because most people learn to speak from English from textbooks. Unfortunately, textbooks are not able to provide the feelings behind the words and it can come across as sounding rather robotic.

In this English tip, Gabby stresses that in order for you to be able to think in English without translating in your head the words you are hearing and saying, you absolutely must listen, listen, and listen some more to native English speakers. It has been said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Listen to
native English speakers who sound fluent and smooth and copy what you hear. Try to speak like they do.

Visit gonaturalenglish.com and find many more English tips like this that are designed to improve your English language fluency and make you sound more natural, and less robotic. Once you start attaching feelings and meaning to words, you will be amazed at how much smoother your English will sound.

Episode transcript below:

Hello! Welcome to Go Natural English.

Today we are going to talk about how to sound less robotic in English

Well, yes, actually that was me trying to be a robot but I find it a little difficult and a little bit annoying.

So, if it’s OK, I’m going to speak in a natural way and give you some tips for how to sound less robotic in English.

I have three quick tips for you.

So, first of all, sounding robotic comes from translating in your mind.

You’re trying to translate from English to your native language; from your native language translating back into English, and you’re thinking too hard and your expression doesn’t come through clearly because you haven’t attached actual meaning to the English words yet.

When you can attach meaning directly to the words in English, then you can start adding feeling to the words – with intonation, with stress, with … even facial expressions and gestures.

So, that is how you sound less robotic.

You need to listen to a lot of natural English.

Listen to the Go Natural English podcast on iTunes for ios or Stitcher for Android.

And that’s a lot of good material and tips, and a native speaker talking so you can hear what it sounds like to use stress and intonation, and you can listen to other materials too – music, the news, stories, movies, TV, all of that – it’s all a great resource for you to listen to and to copy native English with feeling.

OK? So, sound less robotic by stopping all that translation in your mind.

Start to attach meaning to English directly and listen to a lot of English.

Make sure that you understand and you’re using a lot of intonation and stress, too.

Observe how other people, other native speakers communicate and try to copy that.

I hope that this has been helpful.

If you want to learn more, come join me at gonaturalenglish.com in the premium course.